A photograph posted by French President Emmanuel Macron on his Twitter account from the 6 October meeting with European Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Prague, Czech Republic 

Depending on who you ask, Armenia and Azerbaijan are either moving closer towards signing a long overdue peace deal or Yerevan is under duress from Baku to capitulate further following its defeat in 2020. Both can be true, of course, but the reality is that there is only a limited window of opportunity available to reach such a negotiated settlement. Following the recent fighting on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, it seems the international community understands that only too well.

Indeed, many analysts believe, and short of any major upset, such a settlement could come by the end of 2022 or at the beginning of 2023. However, possibly complicating matters, is that it is widely believed that there are two competing peace proposals on the table – one mediated by the European Union and supported by the United States, while another has been drawn up, not surprisingly, by Moscow.

True, after three decades of deadlock, the path to peace was never going to be simple or straightforward. In August, for example, the month brought both renewed fighting and another trilateral meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels. 

A continuation of a process started late last year by the European Union to mediate a lasting peace, Russia’s preoccupation in Ukraine had relegated its own track, largely based on the implementation of the Moscow-brokered 9 November 2020 trilateral and subsequent statements, to the sidelines. There was therefore cautious optimism that the 31 August Brussels meeting would result in a significant breakthrough instead.   

But, as it turned out, the meeting was shorter in nature compared to those previously facilitated by Michel. And even if it was announced that the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, would now start preparing the ground for a long anticipated peace deal, there was still something underwhelming about it. Even the repatriation on 8 September of five Armenian soldiers imprisoned in Azerbaijan didn’t change that.

Instead, any hope that existed before the meeting was then to disappear without warning and literally overnight.

In the early hours of 13 September, violence erupted in multiple locations along the un-demarcated border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with attacks clearly staged within Armenian territory, including on the resort town of Jermuk. Both sides blamed the other for the clashes, with various reasons given for the fighting, but many observers believe it would not have been in Yerevan’s interest to ignite hostilities given its considerably weakened state and especially on its own border.

Though the fighting ended on the evening of 14 September, the scale of the violence was the worst since the 2020 war with almost 300 killed and thousands displaced in less than 48 hours of fighting. Azerbaijani forces also took control of parts of Armenian territory and, at time of writing, still remain there despite international calls for their withdrawal. It seemed that any hope for peace had once again been irreparably damaged and the mutual recriminations were bound to resume.

Some in Azerbaijan argued there was the need to establish a security buffer zone along its border with Armenia, arguably not out of necessity but simply to replicate Yerevan’s occupation of seven regions outside the former Nagorno Karabakh Oblast (NKAO) for nearly 30 years. Others simply believed that this was inevitable given Armenia’s failure to provide ‘unimpeded access’ from Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan as stipulated by the 2020 ceasefire statement.

For their part, many Armenians believed that the fighting was yet another sign Baku prioritises force as a way to coerce Yerevan into making further concessions.

But another fear also fell upon Armenians. That is, that its traditional ally, Russia, had once again abandoned them by failing to live up to its commitments in the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) of which Yerevan is also a member. The fighting also saw many challenge Nikol Pashinyan’s stated aim following the 2020 war to pursue a ‘peace agenda’ by normalising relations with not only Azerbaijan, but also Turkiye.

In response, several thousand angry protestors gathered outside the Armenian National Assembly in Yerevan on the evening of 14 September to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister. They were also particularly irked by a speech delivered by Pashinyan earlier in the day in which he stated he would sign any peace agreement with Azerbaijan if it guaranteed the integrity and security of Armenia’s internationally recognised 29,800 square-kilometres of territory.

This was seen as a clear admission that Yerevan was prepared to drop any perceived territorial claims on Azerbaijan and decades old demands for an independent Nagorno Karabakh. Much of the crowd only left when Pashinyan went live on Facebook to say that no such agreement was about to be signed and even though this does actually appear to be his official position and one that is supported by the entire international community.

Pashinyan was also assisted in weathering the storm by the surprise visit of US House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Yerevan on 18 September. Though claimed to have been arranged before the fighting, it was the highest level visit by a US official in Armenia’s history. Previously, then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton had visited Yerevan twice in 2010 and 2012 and only the visit by then US President George W. Bush to Tbilisi in 2005 surpassed it it regionally.

Analysts, however, urge caution in assessing the significance of the visit. While some hope that US involvement in the region can lessen Armenia’s reliance on Moscow, Yerevan is unlikely to break free from Russia so easily. Moscow already controls key parts of the Armenian economy and its military presence in the country is guaranteed by an assistance agreement until 2044. Russia is also responsible for Armenia’s security on its border with Iran and Turkiye. 

Even so, some still hoped that US military assistance to Armenia would follow, something unlikely while Yerevan remains in Moscow’s orbit and also given the country’s geographical and logistical difficulties. The only feasible route in, they say, would be through Georgia, but Tbilisi maintains excellent relations, including militarily and economically, with both Baku and Ankara. 

Another concern with any sudden moves to replace Russia with the United States is more straightforward. The Russian peacekeeping force in what remains of the former NKAO remains the sole security guarantor of the ethnic Armenians living there until at least 2025 when its term either runs out or is extended. Indeed, of note is that throughout September’s fighting on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, no serious incidents were registered within Karabakh. 

Yet, despite the geopolitical and geographical complexities of the situation, there is no doubt that the events of September forced the United States to not only further support the EU process while Russia seemed apparently impotent or simply distracted in Ukraine, but also to directly engage directly with the sides.

On 20 September, for example, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken convened a trilateral meeting with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York. No concrete details were announced, but Blinken did at least urge Bayramov and Mirzoyan to meet again in a bilateral format before the end of the month as had already been announced in Brussels.

While that meeting didn’t happen until early October, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also organised a trilateral meeting in Washington D.C. between Armenian National Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan and his Azerbaijani counterpart in the EU process, Presidential Advisor Hikmet Hajiyev. This date was also significant in that it also marked the second anniversary of the start of the 2020 war. Also present were the Armenian and Azerbaijani ambassadors to the U.S..

Sullivan’s declaration that it was important for both to pursue ‘time-bound and focused negotiations’ also appeared to signal a renewed and accelerated push to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The announcement of the 2 October meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, in Geneva again raised expectations, but as was the case in September, such hopes appeared to be dashed again.

In the early hours of 2 October, video footage emerged of the execution of Armenian soldiers by Azerbaijani special forces during the fighting of 13-14 September. Reportedly spreading first on Azerbaijani social media, it quickly spread to Armenian networks and was accompanied by predictable declarations that there could never be peace or any agreement between the two countries. The timing of the release could hardly have been worse.

In response, Azerbaijani social media users started posting video footage of Armenian war crimes, presumably from 2020, and resurrected those from the war of the 1990s to further cast an even deeper shadow over the planned meeting. It even seemed that Bayramov and Mirzoyan might not meet at all, though it eventually did following the possible intervention of the EU and US special representatives for the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar and Philip Reeker.

Following the meeting, the statements issued by the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides offered little new, with each simply and selectively reiterating their already stated positions and areas of concern, but there were two notable additions by each. In terms of Baku, it was mention of the need to convene the two border commissions by the end of October rather than in November, and from the Yerevan side it was perhaps the most notable addition of all.

Though mentioned by Pashinyan in September, the Armenian side made reference to the establishment of a ‘discussion mechanism’ to facilitate communication between Baku and the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, something that a document alleged to be a summary of agreements made during the 27 September meeting of Bayramov, Mirzoyan, and Sullivan in Washington D.C. also details.

The document allegedly detailing the agreements reached between Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan, Azerbaijani Presidential Advisor Hikmet Hajiyev, and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington D.C. on 27 September 2020. It is highly credible and now seemingly unofficially confirmed.

This set the scene for meetings between Pashinyan and Aliyev, alongside Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron, on the sidelines of the informal European Political Community summit held for the first time in Prague on 6 October. So substantial did this meeting appear to be that all four leaders met a second time in the same day in order to continue their talks. Moreover, coming out from these meetings was a joint statement recognising the territorial integrity of each other.

Reconfirming commitments under the UN Charter and the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration, most took this as further sign that any Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement would not directly refer to Nagorno Karabakh which would instead become an internal matter for Baku. The European Union would also deploy a civilian monitoring mission to Armenia on its border with Azerbaijan for a maximum period of two months.

At time of writing, little is known about the proposed mission, but it is likely to be much smaller than the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia. Its duration of a maximum of two months also implies that it too is linked to the border delineation process and the signing of a peace deal by the end of the year.

At any rate, Prague was also notable for one other meeting. For the first time since the ill-fated Zurich Protocols, Pashinyan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would become the first leaders of Armenia and Turkiye to meet in 13 years earlier. Nevertheless, it once again highlighted how the Armenia-Turkiye and Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation processes are directly albeit unofficially linked, something that Erdogan effectively confirmed in a press conference held later the same day.

Moscow, however, has not taken kindly to this accelerated push by the EU and US which appears to seek an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement by year’s end. Indeed, some Armenian and Russian analysts believe, it is nothing more than an attempt to oust or significantly limit Moscow’s presence in the South Caucasus, they say. This also relates to the need for Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh past 2025 if such a deal can be signed before the mission is up for extension.

In contrast, it is believed that Russian proposals for a peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan seeks to defer the issue of the Karabakh Armenians until a later unspecified date thus providing Moscow with a reason to keep its peacekeeping mission in place indefinitely. According to unconfirmed reports, this version of a peace agreement has already been rejected by Azerbaijan, further irking Moscow as the EU and US’s alternative increasingly gains momentum.

Furthermore, and while the unblocking of regional economic and transportation routes also features in an EU-US facilitated peace agreement, it is unlikely that either would want Moscow to control the route from Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan as the 9 November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement demands. Further highlighting how Moscow might now step in to nip Brussels’ hopes in the bud, on 11 October it also spoke out against any EU civilian monitoring mission deployed in Armenia.

“We see it as another attempt to interfere in the settlement of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan by any means,” media quoted Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova as saying, adding that peace is only possible through ‘the full implementation of the trilateral statements of the leaders of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan,” perhaps also referring to how unblocking transportation routes might be another bone of contention between the geopolitical actors.

At the end of September, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk had already praised his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts in the trilateral working group charged with the task of unblocking regional trade and communication for their sincerity and referred to how the introduction of new technologies to enable uninterrupted custom controls could become a model in the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

Overchuk too, however, referred to delays in this process when ‘new participants try to enter [the process],” a veiled slight at Brussels and Washington D.C..

That, said Zakharova, would be discussed with the Armenian and Azerbaijan Foreign Ministers by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on 14 October at a CIS Ministerial Council meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan. Russian Presidential Assistant Yury Ushakov also announced on 12 October that Moscow now intends to offer the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents the opportunity to meet in a trilateral summit with Putin in the ‘near future.’

The same day, Lavrov also announced that the CSTO was finally ready to send observers to Armenia to monitor the border with Azerbaijan in a direct challenge to the EU’s own intention to send its own mission which would assist with the work of the border commissions. This, Moscow argues, is a process that it is better suited to assist in if only because it claims to have access to the Soviet-era maps that it says are necessary for the commissions to undertake their work.

Once considered complimentary processes, this month possibly demonstrates how the two different visions of a proposed peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan from Brussels/Washington D.C. and Moscow risk becoming bitterly competitive. As a result, with hopes that a peace deal between Yerevan and Baku could be signed by year’s end incredibly high, it is imperative that geopolitical rivalry doesn’t result in neither being signed. After over three decades of conflict, and as I’ve said many times before,  it truly is about time.